A Heated Debate Between Two Charismatic Geniuses: A Cardinal Fan (Jeff Lung) and a Tiger Fan (Allen Krause)

Results tagged ‘ Collusion ’

“The player’s union is upset because no team is willing to give Barry Bonds a
contract. Does Barry deserve another chance and which team is in a desperate enough
position to give him that opportunity?”

– Allen

“P.S. Don’t say Detroit because we both know that ain’t gonna’ happen.”

It is May and poor Barry Bonds doesn’t have a job. Gee, I feel real sorry for the guy. Must be hard being unemployed, trying to provide for a family while under immense scrutiny from the law for being, quite frankly, a terrible person.

Luckily for him, not all is lost in Barry’s World, because as I mentioned before, he will most likely be employed by some team sometime this year — probably closer to July or August. Though I predicted the only team with the hutzpah to sign him was the Evil Empire, I now believe there may be others more “desperate” to do so. More on that in a moment.

First I want to dispel any notion that the current Barry situation has any link to an MLB brass conspiracy of collusion. I understand that the Players’ Union has no choice but to investigate the possibility of collusion, but believe me, this does not even come close to comparing with the Kik Gibson, Jack Morris, Paul Molitor cases of the ’80s where teams were absolutely in the wrong, colluding out of greed and oneupmanship to teach those players a “lesson”. Barry Bonds comes with serious baggage and that baggage could mean less dollars for whatever team takes him on. As is usually the case, this is about money and money only. No team wants to risk losing revenue or being identified by the dark cloud that is number 25. At least, not just yet.

But the time will come later this summer when that risk may pay out for teams such as the Yankees, Blue Jays, A’s, Rays and yes, maybe even the Tigers. Out of all of those teams, I find the team who could use him the most right now would be the ginormously underachieving Tigers. Of course, by August they may already find themselves mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, so I can see how the further along we get in the season, the less likely such a signing will occur. But after that dastardly start and their current slump where they’ve lost seven of their last ten, if the Tigers were going to do it, they better do it now. Why Mr. Krause would say something as bold as “Don’t say Detroit because we both know that ain’t gonna happen,” is quite beyond me. If someone would’ve said the Tigers would sign Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis in the offseason I would’ve laughed it off as being nuts. After they did, if someone would’ve said the Tigers would be in the basement of the AL Central, I would’ve laughed it off as being completely nuts. Bottom line: the Tigers don’t make any sense right now so why would I ever expect them to make sense at all, ever?

For other American League teams, Barry’s swaggering forehead might be something they can look past if he can still produce 20 homers, a gajillion walks and a high on-base-percentage. All signs point to that still being a possibility, so I look for teams with playoff potential to give Jeff Borris a ring as we get closer to really seeing what teams are in the playoff picture.

At this point, I’d say there’s really no way he’ll be in a National League uniform ever again. The closest he got was when Tony LaRussa expressed interest towards the end of spring training in signing Bonds to help protect Pujols. Of course, at that time, TLR didn’t know that the likes of Ankiel, Ludwick and even Glaus would perform as adequately as they have. Despite TLR’s explanation of why a Bonds signing would be beneficial for the team and their chances in the Central, the story caused a near revolt of fans towards management and just as quickly the possibility extinguished before it ever had a chance of happening.

It’s probably better for everyone that Bonds stay out of the NL — he’s tainted it enough and it’s time he leave it alone. Though once a graceful athlete in the outfield, the last several years have exposed Bonds’ nonchalant patrol as embarrassing and sad. His defense was quite the symbol of his entire attitude towards the game in general: why should I care?

Which is exactly how I feel about the Barry Bonds situation as it stands now. I feel dirty writing this because I’m wasting precious time on the topic when I could be talking about other things like: How ’bout ‘dem Redbirds!

Barry has been a stain on the game, on his teammates and now Barry is a stain on this blog. I blame Allen Krause.

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